


All That Stands Between The Souls Release

by gilligankane



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-28
Updated: 2010-07-28
Packaged: 2017-11-17 07:46:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/549232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilligankane/pseuds/gilligankane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's not the first time Santana Lopez has been in high school - she's done this almost four times now - but it might be her last.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Anything through the first season remains loosely canon.

Joining Cheerios is a risky enough move – Sue tells her so on her eighteenth first day of high school, even if the tyrant was the one who told her to put in the uniform in the first place – but joining Glee is pretty much going to end up being the final nail in the coffin.  
  
Sue pulls her into what Santana has dubbed “ _The Trophy Office_ ” and berates her for most of the school day, screaming about being irresponsible and being stupid and Santana sits there with her legs crossed and her hands over her knee, patiently waiting until, eventually, Sue takes a deep breath and sits down in her chair, leaning forward with her palms flat on her desk.  
  
“Lopez,” she hisses, “this just might be the stupidest thing you’ve done this decade.”  
  
Santana nods in agreement, but leans closer to the desk, too, unable to hide the excitement in her eyes. “But  _Glee_. It’s actually happening.”  
Sue shakes her head, scowling. “It’s dangerous.”  
  
“I need this,” Santana says, suddenly seeing red. “I’ve been hanging around for  _years_ and finally, there’s a Glee club that actually has potential. The last time, if we had won Regionals…”  
  
“I know,” Sue says, resigned. “If Shcuester hadn’t flubbed that line during ‘Staying Alive’ you would have gotten out of here. That pile of hair gel has always been useless.”  
  
Impassioned, Santana rises out of her seat, staring down at Sue with a glare the Coach doesn’t back down from. “I joined, which is really only your fault,” she points out, “and I’m staying with it. And we’re going to win.”  
  
She turns towards the door, her skirt spinning up behind her in pleats, her ponytail bouncing with intention. “And when we do,” she adds as she pulls the door, her face slipping into the all too-familiar scowl she’s had years to perfect, “I’m going to move on, once and for all.”  
  
\---  
  
Every four years, Santana stands in front of William McKinley with the rest of the acne-riddled, over-excited, nervous freshman class, staring up at whatever Principal they have this year, bored out of her mind as they are given a speech written long before Santana’s first  _first_ day of high school.  
  
She’s done this too many times to count now. (That’s a lie; she keeps a mental tally in her head and this is the fourth time she’s been a freshman at William McKinley High School.)  
  
Every four years, she enrolls in the same classes – some with the same teachers as the first time she did this – and makes friends with the same type of people and dates the same type of boys. It’s a never-ending cycle of an endless dream.  
  
This time, though, something feels different.  
  
For the first time since she died, in 1992, this feels like the year she’ll break the cycle; this feels like the year she won’t have keep coming back to this same place and play these same games.  
  
This time, she thinks she has a shot of getting out.  
  
\---  
  
Sue, younger and a little less angry about everything, figures out her secret immediately. Sixteen, scared and not used to this ghost thing, Santana lurks in dark corners and avoids making eye contact with people, afraid that they’ll recognize her.  
  
They don’t; it’s a weird side effect. Every time she restarts high school, it’s like no one even remembered she just graduated.  
  
Sue, though, who probably made a pact with the Devil at some point in her youth, puts two and two together as quickly as it takes Santana to realize that she can’t walk through walls, which is quickly. She pulls the scared teenager into her very dull, trophy-less office and stares at her across her small, metal desk.  
  
Santana isn’t sure what to think, because she’s always steered clear of Sue Sylvester.  
  
Even in 1992, Sue Sylvester is a force to be reckoned with and if Santana was afraid of her  _alive_ , she’s even more afraid of her  _dead_.  
  
“So, Lopez. I see you went and got yourself killed.”  
  
And if she weren’t so scared, Santana would be furious. It wasn’t like she asked for it. It wasn’t as if she begged those group of boys to toss her around like a ragdoll. She didn’t  _want_ this; it just happened.  
  
Sue must see the fury in her eyes, because she lifts her hands defensively. “Okay, spitfire, relax. I was just saying.” The older woman shakes her head a few times. “Want to explain to me what you’re doing here? We all saw the body. It was in the papers.” Her voice is matter-of-fact and Santana can't find it in her to take offense to it.  
  
Santana has been asking the same question since she woke up and looked down at herself, broken and bruised and bloodied on the sidewalk. She’s been asking herself that since she stumbled home to see her parents collapsed on the front porch, clutching each other while a policeman stood, uncomfortable, nearby. She’s been asking herself that since she decided to just go back to school and no one paid her any attention, just like the day before, when she alive.  
  
“I don’t know,” she says honestly, staring at anywhere but Sue. “I just didn’t know where else to go.”  
  
There’re a few minutes of silence until Sue nods and stands, pushing her metal chair across the floor with a loud scrape. “Well, Lopez. You can’t keep wearing that hideous outfit.” She rummages through an open box on the side of her desk, pulling out something and throwing it at Santana who barely catches it. “Here, put these on and report to the football field after school.”  
  
She joins the Cheerios for the first time in 1992 and slips back into Glee completely unnoticed.  
  
She moves in with Sue and they spend the rest of the school year trying to figure out what happened.  
  
\---  
  
  
In ’94, she gets so close to what she thinks might be moving on.  
  
They’re on stage at Regionals and even if they’re best shot at winning – Bryan Ryan, with his voice of an angel – has graduated, Will Schuester has grown into his own right.  
  
They have a shot at winning if they can get through “Staying Alive” and it’s halfway through the song that Santana feels it.  
  
She knows the big lights on the stage are white and bright, but the heat coming off them feels different than any other stage lights she’s been under. It makes her toes tingle and her fingers feel like they’re stretching towards something she can’t see, but it feels right. It feels like she should keep reaching towards whatever is calling out to her.  
  
She should follow the light.  
  
There’s a tugging in her chest that has nothing to do with their funk number or the odd un-Sue-like look on Coach Sylvester’s face in the third row of the auditorium. It’s a tug that says ‘ _follow me, follow me_ ’ and when her line comes she nails it, bringing down the curtain around them.  
  
As soon as they announce that William McKinley’s Glee club didn’t win, the tug inside her dies quickly, and she’s too angry, too upset, too intent on murdering William Schuester for his voice cracking in the middle of the chorus, that she forgets all about it.  
  
It’s not until years later that she realizes that tug was the white light everyone talks about; that tug was her chance to get out and it stopped pulling the minute Glee lost.  
  
It’s not until years later that she realizes if she wants to get out, she’s going to have to go down singing for the win.  
  
\---  
  
“Status report,” Sue barks.  
  
Santana turns coolly towards Quinn, awaiting the head Cheerios’ update. “We failed,” the blonde says, defeated.   
  
Sue lifts her eyebrow, but she doesn’t look like she was expecting anything else.  
  
“They banded together like some little merry clan of mythical creatures,” Santana cuts in, sneering. “It was gag-inducing.”  
  
“Apparently,” Sue muses, tapping the tips of her fingers together, “this is going to be more work than I thought.” Santana, still looking at Sue, even though Quinn is staring at the ground, ashamed, watches as the Coach’s eyes get a glint to them only Santana has ever been able to read; she’s has enough time to figure out the different looks of Sue Sylvester. “The new Cheerio,” she says slowly, “the dim one. Next time you go to Glee, you bring her with you.” Sue laughs at her own cleverness. “With her there, she’ll distract that walking hair advertisement long enough for you two to do your jobs.”  
  
Quinn, wide-eyed, nods frantically, relief of punishment practically radiating off her face.  
  
“Dismissed,” Sue commands. “Lopez, stay.”  
  
Santana nods discreetly at Quinn, telling her it’s okay to leave and the blonde doesn’t hesitate, breaking out of Sue’s door into the hallway where Finn is waiting, concern in his eyes.  
  
It makes Santana want to throw up.  
  
She turns back to Sue, a million questions running through her head, but the most important one is: “ _what the hell, Sue_?”  
  
Sue smirks at Santana and puts up a hand; a signal for Santana to shut up.  
  
“I just want to know  _why_ ,” Santana murmurs under her breath.  
  
Sue leans over the desk and gives Santana something almost resembling a real smile. “She’s the best dancer on the Cheerios,” Sue says simply.  
  
It takes Santana a few minutes, but eventually, she understands what Sue did; what Sue is doing, for her.  
  
\---  
  
Her parents had warned her when she started high school, the first time: “ _Don’t join that singing club, Santana_ ” and “ _Why don’t you cheer for the football team. That nice girl down the street is a cheerleader_.”  
  
She didn’t listen because it’s one of the rights of being a teenager, and she hated football games, and  _plus_ , she was really good at singing.  
  
It put her on the bottom of the social ladder in school, obviously, and she had to deal with constant insult, but as soon as she started singing, it didn’t matter what people thought about her, or said to her, or did to her.  
  
Apparently, though, when she wasn’t singing, it mattered.  
  
“Hey loser,” they hissed at her as she walked down the halls. It didn’t matter that Bryan Ryan was one of the most popular guys she knew; she was still a little freshman and therefore, fair game for the upperclassmen, and they made her aware of it every day.  
  
Every day until they became aware of how fragile she was.  
  
In eighteen years, that’s one of the things she regrets the most: not listening to her parents and picking up those pompoms when she had the chance.  
  
\---  
  
Sue was right; Brittany is the best dancer on the Cheerios and she distracts Mr. Schuester, but not for the reason Sue and Santana originally thought.  
  
They thought,  _bring in the stupid girl and drive Schuester into a spiral of insanity_. Instead, he completely focuses on putting Brittany in the forefront of all their numbers, reworking choreography for hours and it leaves an opening for Quinn to slip her claws into Rachel Berry and tear her a new one, all the while boosting the talent of New Directions.  
  
Sue claims that was her original idea and Santana doesn’t correct her or roll her eyes; she’s too excited that they finally have a real chance at winning something.  
  
\---  
  
Brittany is the first  _real_ friend she makes in eighteen years.  
  
She’s had acquaintances, and teammates, and enemies, but her last friend was her cousin Maria, who, according to constant Google searches, is now married and has two small children.  
  
Making friends, Sue tells her, is dangerous business.  
  
Friends want to come and have sleepovers; friends want to go to malls on weekends; friends want to share their deep, dark secrets; friends expect you to help them to the top, not step on them to get there.  
  
Sue is adamantly against friends, but Santana finds she can’t really help herself; Brittany is infectious.  
  
The scowl she’s been perfecting for years – in the mirror, two times a day, per Sue’s recommendations – falters in the face of Brittany, who likes to smile so much Santana is sure her face is frozen that way. She’s less surly, too, and more friendly when Brittany’s around; more apt to let people touch her and less apt to scream at unsuspecting freshman, which never gets old, or not funny.  
  
Brittany slips into her life for her to use, as an advantage. Sue only introduces them because Santana wants out of this cycle of terror she’s living in.   
  
But the further Brittany intertwines into her life, the less Santana feels like she wants to move on.  
  
\---  
  
Santana thinks it’s funny – in a not-so-funny sort of way – how the more things change, the more they stay the same.  
  
When Will, no,  _Mr. Schuester_ now, gets the job as Spanish teacher, Santana almost hyperventilates, pacing the floor of Sue’s office and ranting - so loudly that Sue has to pull the blinds – about how her life is going to come crashing down on her since he’s here and who does he think he is, trying to relive his glory days through a mangy group of teenagers, just because he couldn’t hack it the first time.  
  
People think its Sue yelling about Schuester and that’s how the rumors – the ones that Sue hates Schue – start. Sue doesn’t even try to correct them.  
  
He doesn’t even recognize her.   
  
She strides past him the halls, head held high, uniform snug in all the right places and he stares right through her, like she’s a ghost.  
  
That’s she  _is_ a ghost hasn’t really escaped her, but it’s not the point.  
  
The point is that she practically hero-worshipped him when he was all brace-face and acne-riddled and here he is, hair curlier than ever, staring her down with something like  _fear_ in his eyes. Sue, of course, is thrilled, but Santana mopes for a few days in her bedroom because she thought that maybe he would see her and recognize something,  _anything_ about her.  
  
When she joins Glee, she sees that he’s still the same kid he was in high school, all bubble-gum dreams and married to that evil Terri woman who made Santana’s life hell those first last years of high school. He’s still high on the music, thinking he can solve all of the kid’s problems with a song.  
  
A part of her is tempted to ask him which song can solve her problem.  
  
Then there’re the Rachel Berry’s.   
  
She’s just the last in a long line of divas; first there was Jordan Thomas, then Marissa Ryan, Lois Heller and now Rachel Berry. They’re always the same: obnoxiously talented and completely aware of it, with dreams and fantasies that stretch far beyond the town limits of Lima, and willing to take down whoever gets in their way, whether they realize it or not they posses that trait or not.  
  
The main characters all remain the same (the sensitive jock, the little singer that could, the misunderstood kids looking for acceptance, the badasses who think they’re too cool for anyone, the queen bee and her band of minions).   
  
The only things that change are the names.  
  
\---  
  
Brittany isn’t the first girl she kisses.  
  
The locker room isn’t even a new place to make out with someone.  
  
Years ago, it was Jenny Fabray – and Santana feels a little sick to her stomach ever time she looks at Quinn, when all she can remember is how knobby-kneed Quinn was at eight years old, dirt smudged across her face while she played under the bleachers during the football games.  
  
It was blonde hair and long legs, but Brittany kisses different than Jenny does, like she’s afraid she’s going to break Santana in two.  
  
It reminds her of her first boyfriend – Hector Rodriguez got past his hair-pulling stage eventually, and picked her flowers to say he was sorry – and how he kissed her hesitantly behind the Church one Sunday when he told her that her dress was pretty.  
  
At first, when Brittany kisses her quickly after their first Glee practice together, giggling nervously and shyly looking away before murmuring something about needing to go home, Santana hates the way Brittany kisses.  
  
It makes her feel like she’s fading away; like she’s this thin wisp of air.  
  
So she kisses Brittany harder, pushes her harder against the metal lockers, pulls harder on the hair wrapped around her fingers just to feel real and Brittany wraps her arms tighter around Santana’s waist, never complaining.  
  
It makes her think, for mere seconds, as she traps Brittany tightly between her body and the door to the showers, that maybe she doesn’t want to disappear after all.  
  
And then another day goes by – another day of being sixteen; another day closer to the end of another senior year where she’ll be another freshman with another girl or boy to hang off of for another four years – and all she wants to do is be gone.  
  
Brittany or no Brittany, Santana wants to get out of this place.  
  
\---  
  
Over dinner one night, she picks up her fork and puts it down again, pausing long enough for Sue to sigh and put down her own fork.  
  
“What?”  
  
Santana rolls the question she wants to ask around on the tip of her tongue, testing the letters against the back of her teeth before she allows herself to speak. “Have you ever been in love?”  
  
Sue snorts. “Love? What do you know about love?”  
  
“A lot,” Santana points out. “Technically, I’m thirty-four.”  
  
“Technically,” Sue mocks, “you’ve experienced nothing but high school love affairs. Which mean nothing in the scheme of things.”  
  
“I think that’s when it means the most.”  
  
Sue glares at her for a long moment before picking her fork back up. “Eat your dinner, Lopez.”  
  
“I think that’s when it hurts the most, too,” Santana adds before she takes another bite.  
  
\---  
  
“Why are we trying to destroy Glee again?” Brittany asks, for only the seventh time this week. It’s a record low for the blonde, but Santana let’s Quinn field the answer, because Santana doesn’t feel like lying today.  
  
 _She’s_ not trying to destroy Glee. Neither is Sue, for that matter, but Quinn gets a murderous glint in her eyes when she talks about Glee; the same glint her older sister Jenny would get when she talked about Mr. Fabray.  
  
Santana thinks, for the safety of that whole family, that it’s a good thing Jenny left when she did.  
  
“Because,” Quinn hisses. “That tranny of a freakshow is trying to steal my boyfriend.”  
  
Santana rolls her eyes at Brittany, getting a giggle out of the tall blonde stretched across the couch in her living room. She’s seen this play before; Quinn will get her precious boyfriend and social standing back soon enough, she just needs to be patient.  
  
Except that Santana was right when she said this time felt different, because Quinn’s eyes go from hard to nervous to terrified in a matter of seconds and Santana is lifting off the couch, wrapping her arms around Brittany’s feet as she does so the blonde doesn’t roll onto the floor and peering into Quinn’s face.  
  
She doesn’t like what she thinks she sees.  
  
“Oh, Quinn,” she breathes out. “What did you do?”  
  
Quinn tells them everything – Puck and Finn and the baby and the Chastity Ball – and Santana can only sit there with her mouth hanging open and her eyes wide, because this has never happened before.  
  
She’s played this game so many times that little things like this – like Brittany and Quinn’s pregnancy and the sheer talent of New Directions – throw her so hard she’s sure that if she wasn’t already dead, she would be.  
  
“It’s going to be okay,” she says, reflexively.  
  
She said the same thing when Marissa Ryan broke her cheekbone in a car accident the week before Regionals in ’97; when Joey Lowry told her he was gay while his hand was down her skirt; when Jenny Fabray tried to kiss her in the girl’s bathroom; when Sue was distraught about Santana missing yet another chance to move on.  
  
Quinn gives her a look that says, “ _oh, really_?” and Santana doesn’t blame her for the skepticism.  
  
For the first time in eighteen years, Santana doesn’t know what comes next.  
  
\---  
  
She sees her parents again three years after she dies, at a gas station on the edge of Lima. A couple of Cheerios planned a trip to Cleveland for the weekend and they skipped school on Thursday to beat the traffic.  
  
It’s Ohio, though, and the traffic is never really an issue coming out of Lima.  
  
She’s sitting shotgun as they pull into the station and she volunteers to get the snacks because if she hears one more girl say “ _like, I know_ ”, she might lose her mind. Pulling her jacket tighter around her body, she saunters into the convenience store and heads for the chips and all the unhealthy snacks Sue refuses to keep in the house.  
  
Halfway through a bag of chips she opened while she was deciding what else to get, she sees her father standing in front of the drink coolers, holding a bottle of Coke, rolling it in his hands.  
  
He must feel her staring at him, because he turns around and smiles sheepishly, embarrassed at being caught seemingly daydreaming. “My daughter,” he says, his voice thick with emotion she’s never seen from the man she knew as stoic, even hard, at times. “She drinks this.”  
  
“Drank,” a woman corrects softly as she appears next to him, gripping his elbow. Santana doesn’t recognize her mother, with her heavy eyes and her graying hair. “Our daughter used to drink this. I always said-”  
  
“It rots your teeth,” Santana interrupts, giving a small smile. “My mom says the same thing.”  
  
Her father smiles at her sadly, eyes narrowed a little, but whatever confusion he was feeling, whoever he thought he was seeing, passes, and he hands her the bottle. “Here. We won’t tell her if you don’t.”  
  
Santana holds the sweating bottle in her hands. “Somehow, I think she’ll know,” she says, almost laughing.  
  
The woman who was her mother pats her gently on the shoulder as the people who were her parents pass her. “Mother’s always do.”  
  
She follows them down the small, chip-filled aisle and stands at the counter while the boy behind it tries to get her attention, watching as the Lopez’s get into a truck she recognizes as her uncle’s, with a uHaul attached to the back of it. She watches them pull out of the station and drive away from Lima.  
  
It’s the last time she sees them.  
  
\---  
  
Sue stares at her from across the wooden desk; it’s been years since that first metal desk, with the dent in the side the approximate size of Santana’s foot.  
  
“I still don’t understand what you want me to do.”  
  
Santana raps her knuckles against the single paper on the desk. “Kick her off the team,” she says resolutely.  
  
The Cheerios head coach doesn’t even glance down at the sheet Santana has assembled, full of indulgent information about why Quinn Fabray needs to be off the squad – almost every small infraction Santana can think Quinn might have violated.  
  
All of these nondescript, insane reasons instead of the real one.  
  
“You want me to kick our head cheerleader off the team for… jellybeans,” Sue says slowly. “Lopez, I thought that after all these years, you would have accrued some level of intelligence.”  
  
Santana opens her mouth to protest, but Sue cuts her off, clearing her throat almost silently. “And you’re even more idiotic than I believed if you think I’d kicked Q off for,” she glances down, snorting, “eating a double cheeseburger.” She frowns. “But make a note that starting tomorrow, the entire squad is on a week of Master Cleanse.”  
  
“Listen,” she commands Sue, rising to her full height in her seat. “She needs to get booted. Now.”  
  
Sue eyes her evenly. “You won’t be head cheerleader. Not only is it too risky, but you don’t have the right stuff.”  
  
Santana ignores the insults. “I don’t want to be head cheerleader.”  
  
“What aren’t you telling me?”  
  
The words slip off her tongue before she can stop them, just like when she told her mother she loved singing; like when she told her lab partner that his girlfriend was cheating on him; like when she told Tammy Salton that her ass  _did_ look fat in those jeans.  
  
“She’s pregnant,” Santana says quietly, hanging her head.  
  
Later, when she sees Quinn’s face and the utter  _despair_ etched into her eyes, she’ll regret telling a secret that wasn’t hers to tell.  
  
But for now, staring at Sue in a room that holds trophies and secrets and all of Santana’s accumulated yearbooks, all Santana can think about it is holding back the hair of too many cheerleaders who thought it was just a missed period; holding the hands of girls in cold clinic waiting rooms before the doctors calls names Santana hasn’t been able to forget.  
  
This time, this year, this shot at high school is different.  
  
Quinn is different too; Quinn will be different too.  
  
\---  
  
Except Quinn hates her for it.  
  
Quinn doesn’t know she hates Santana for it, because she doesn’t know it was Santana –  _it could never have been one of you_ , she had told Brittany and Santana, crying.  _You wouldn’t do that to me_  – but she hates who did it to her.  
  
So she hates Santana without knowing she hates her.  
  
It’s not like Santana can really explain it. She can’t just say “I’m sorry, but I had Sue kick you off so you could give yourself and this baby a chance” because Quinn will keep asking questions Santana doesn’t want to give the answers to.  
  
She can’t say the other reason why she did it either.  
  
Because really, getting Quinn kicked off Cheerios so she can focus on Glee one hundred percent is  _selfish_.  
  
And Quinn would hate her even more for that.  
  
\---  
  
In the middle of Glee one afternoon, after belting out “Lean On Me” to a teary-eyed Quinn and a happy Finn, Santana catches herself laughing.  
  
She has her arm around Brittany’s neck, pulling the taller girl into her and she’s laughing with her face pressed against sweet-smelling blonde hair and it’s the first time she’s laughed in years.  
  
She’s smiled and she’s frowned and she’s did the occasional polite giggle when the head cheerleader of the year giggles first, but she hasn’t laughed since before she died; since before that last time, when the cute football player that lived on her street offered to walk her home and told her jokes the whole way.  
  
Santana hasn’t laughed since that stupid “chicken crossed the road” joke but Brittany leans over and says something Santana doesn’t even hear and she’s laughing again like she never stopped in the first place.  
  
The noise sounds foreign to her ears, like a record she thinks she might have heard once but can’t remember the words to.  
  
Mr. Schuester, smiling at the piano next to Brad, stops and stares at her.  
  
Santana can’t figure out from his expression whether it’s because he thinks it’s strange that she can actually do something other than scowl, or whether it’s because he thinks he might have heard that sound somewhere before.  
  
When he shakes his head and his face clears, Santana goes back to laughing.  
  
Now that’s she started, she forgets why she even stopped.


	2. Part 2

The first time she realizes what’s really happening is Sectionals.  
  
They’re going for broke on a song Finn is clearly directing at Quinn and Puck because Brittany – sweet, loveable, dim Brittany with a heart of gold who does what she’s told – leaked the set list and it’s not until she’s defending Brittany that she realizes what’s really happening.  
  
  
“Okay, look,” she starts, pulling the attention away from Brittany, who looks devastated that she did something this terrible in the first place. “Believe what you want, but no one’s forcing me to be here.” She takes a long hard look around the room, making eye contact with each and every person, lingering on Rachel Berry. “And if you ever tell anyone this, I’ll deny it - but I  _like_  being in Glee Club.”  
  
It’s when she adds, “It’s the best part of my day, okay? I wasn’t gonna go and mess it up,” that she knows she’s in trouble.  
  
Because she means it; she means every word.  
  
It’s the first time in eighteen years that she cares about something other than moving on; that she admits to caring about something at all.  
  
It’s the first time in eighteen years she comes close to saying she has a reason for waking up every morning, another day as a perpetual sixteen-year-old.  
  
On stage, it’s the first time in sixteen years – since  _Will_  and the notorious loss McKinley High suffered – that she stops singing.  
  
She feels that familiar tug in her chest and she stops singing because she catches Brittany’s eye as they circle around each other and the blonde smiles so wide it makes her breath catch and her heart pulls in an entirely different way and she stops.  
  
She stops because the thought of the consequences of going on singing is suddenly too much for her to think about.  
  
The idea of moving on, finally, is overshadowed by the gripping desire to stay put, and she does the first thing she can think of and just stops singing, right in the middle of the chorus while Rachel pours her heart and soul into every word; while Quinn holds her stomach and stares longingly at Finn; while Brittany brushes her hand against Santana’s shoulder; while the members of New Directions close their eyes and give it their all.  
  
She stops singing and starts praying that this isn’t happening.  
  
\---  
  
She can’t sleep again – hasn’t really, since they won Sectionals, with no help from her – so she slides out of bed and creeps down the red-and-white hallway to the office door, pulling on the handle and sliding inside before Sue can protest.  
  
“Lopez,” Sue says softly, as if she’s going to wake someone up.  
  
“I think this time it might be real,” Santana says instead of ‘ _hello_ ’. “I think this time, we might actually win. I think this might be the end.”  
  
Sue puts down her magazine and takes off her reading glasses as Santana settles into the corner of the oversized couch against one wall in Sue’s office. “And?”  
  
Santana swallows heavily and fingers the edge of her shirt, avoiding Sue’s gaze, like she’s sixteen for the first time and Sue has just showed her the crime scene photos of her own death.   
  
“And I think I might be scared for it to be over.”  
  
\---  
  
It flips a switch.  
  
Santana Lopez, in all her life, can count the number of things she’s been scared of on one hand.  
  
The list doesn’t include death – because, been there, done that.  
  
But it does include Sue Sylvester’s wrath, being stuck at sixteen, and spiders.  
  
The day after Sectionals, the morning after the first night she spends tangled around Brittany – not the first time they sleep together, but the first time she stays – she takes being stuck off her list and replaces it with  _moving on_.  
  
It flips a switch and Santana starts scrambling for a way to hold onto this life she’s created for herself just when she was ready to quit. She stops singing and starts pushing again, at the Rachel Berry’s and the Quinn Fabray’s and the Finn Hudson’s, until they snap and give her what she wants: their anger and disappointment and hatred.  
  
It’s what gives her the strength to keep fighting the inevitable.  
  
They have the talent this year.  
  
They have the chance to go all the way.  
  
But she finally has the girl, and the friends, and the missing pieces she’s being trying to find for almost two decades and in a fit of insanity, she starts to push away from the things she’s longed for, prayed for, wished on shooting stars for, because she just wants a little more time.  
  
She just needs a little more time.  
  
\---  
  
She’s had a few years to perfect the art of the perfect minion.  
  
Sue had always said it was too dangerous to be the head cheerleader; Santana knows that is. She also knows that she’s always been better at being just on the cusp of the spotlight, taking orders and delegating them appropriately, but never being in charge.  
  
She’s had a few years to perfect the art of being a follower, but she’s had years to study the leaders, firsthand, and devising a plan comes easier to her now than it ever would have eighteen years ago.  
  
A part of her thinks it’s mostly because of Sue, but no matter the reason, she quickly figures out the way to gain more time is to take Rachel Berry down.  
  
Not that the other members of New Directions aren’t talented in their own right, but she was there when Rachel quit for Cabaret, and they suffered, unable to find that  _spark_  that made them special. Because Brittany is the best dancer, and Mercedes can hold a glory note, and Artie can actually sing, but Rachel Berry is what sets them apart from every other mediocre glee club in Ohio.  
  
So  _Operation Rachel Berry_  is launched on a Sunday and Sue lets her eat ice cream as a reward.  
  
When Brittany asks what she’s working on, Santana practices her new method of distraction and the blonde forgets what she asking in the first place.  
  
\---  
  
Jesse St. James isn’t that hard to seduce. She doesn’t kiss him, or sleep with him, because he’s not  _that_  kind of boy – he’s the kind of boy you wave show tickets in front of, attached to a DVD of Rachel Berry singing “Don’t Rain On My Parade” and just wait for him to come crawling.  
  
She sets up their first meeting, in the library, and watches as Rachel falls under his spell and just like that, part one of her plan is set into motion.  
  
Sue studies her evenly and nods her approval.  
  
\---  
  
Part two of the plan makes her feel cheap, for what she’s doing and for who she’s using to do it.  
  
“I don’t get it,” Brittany murmurs against her neck, nipping down to Santana’s collarbone. Santana grips the blonde’s waist tighter, trying to control the rock of their hips. “You don’t even like boys.”  
  
She arches her neck back a little as she chuckles. “No, babe, that’s you.”  
  
Brittany lifts her head, pressing her elbows into the mattress and smiles faintly at Santana. “You don’t even like Finn, then.”  
  
Hooking her leg around the back of Brittany’s knee, she flips them, landing on the blonde with no amount of grace to speak of. She dips her head, nudging her nose against Brittany’s neck, up the smooth column, across her chin and past her mouth to her ear. “Please just trust me.”  
  
And Brittany, slim fingers gripping Santana’s waist, smiles so brightly – like those bright lights on that stage – that Santana feels something inside her chest give away and she can’t look into her eyes and lie so she busies herself with kissing down Brittany’s front, her hands moving down with her.  
  
“I do,” Brittany breathes out, back arching.  
  
Santana wants to say that Brittany shouldn’t but she can’t make herself.  
  
\---  
  
In the end, Finn is appropriately confused and Rachel is appropriately devastated and Mr. Schuester sits in glee with his head hung low, defeated by the cycle of teenage angst – how he forgot what heartbreak at this age felt like, Santana can’t believe, because she was there, in 1992, when Terri cheated on him with Bryan Ryan – and Sue glides through the halls, cackling with delight, because someone took down William Schuester and she’s getting all the credit for it.  
  
Glee shuns Rachel for Jesse St. James so she shuns him, telling him she can only see him in secret.  
  
He shows up at the library two days later, finding Santana in the stacks where all the mimeographs of the news papers are kept, looking over the story of her death. She slams the book shut heavily and crosses her arms over her chest in an eerily practiced manner.  
  
“I want to win her back,” he says desperately, like he’s been chasing after her for years. “Help me do it.”  
  
They’re in the library, so she takes advantage of the resources around her and pieces together a simple, yet romantically-inclined plan that puts Jesse and Rachel back together and keeps the brunette occupied.  
  
He glances down at the March 27, 1992 Edition of Lima News with her face splashed across of the front page, her name in large, bold, impossible to miss letters and shrugs sadly, because  _no_ , he doesn’t recognize her either.  
  
“Some people, the things that happened to them… Break your heart, don’t they,” he says quietly.  
  
“Yeah,” she answers, staring at him, thinking of Brittany, her parents, Jenny Fabray, Quinn, Sue. “Yeah, some people do.”  
  
\---  
  
Santana doesn’t count on Jesse being a double agent – she never even sees that coming.  
  
Sue, thank God, has the decency not to say “ _I told you so_ ”.  
  
\---  
  
The ghost thing sometimes confuses her. She can’t walk through walls, people can touch her – Brittany can touch her, can burn her skin and set her on fire with the simplest drag of a finger across her cheek – people can see her, but she’s dead.   
  
She knows she died.  
  
She’s seen the papers and the news clips and she felt her life drain out of her body while she lay on a cold sidewalk in March. She felt her body fold and twist and she remembers feeling tired, so tired that she just wanted to close her eyes for a second.  
  
The weird thing is, she remembers opening her eyes again.  
  
She’s done the research – hours not spent on the practice field staring at the people who shouldn’t be able to basket catch her, because technically, she didn’t exist anymore, were spent in the library, reading anything and everything about ghosts, until Sue marched in and marched her back out, telling her to move on.  
  
The weird thing was, she couldn’t.  
  
Santana Lopez was stuck, not a ghost and not a human, just a shell of someone who used to be alive, caught in a slipstream of time that refused to release its hold on her.  
  
She could touch and feel and see and smell and hear, just like everyone else could, but something was different; there was no spark whenever she touched anything, no warmth or cold that should draw from whatever she was touching – just… nothing.  
  
Then she touched Brittany and world exploded around her, every sensation doubling and becoming so much that she thought maybe she was dying all over again.  
  
The weird thing was, she thought maybe she might be coming alive again.  
  
\---  
  
Rachel in incensed, fire and flames and revenge cackling around her constantly. The small brunette sits her down and asks her how to get back at Jesse St. James, for all he’s done to her; to them.  
  
“How do I make him  _suffer_  the way he made me suffer? How do I hit him where it hurts?”  
  
It takes Santana a few minutes to answer, because she keeps having to blink, trying to get the image of Jordan Thomas – eighteen and scorned by her college boyfriend who dumped her for a girl in his Psychology class – out of her head. The way Rachel paces back and forth across the linoleum floor, clenching and unclenching her fists, breathing deep and hard through her nose, is  _exactly_  the way Jordan did it, years ago.  
  
Santana crosses one leg over the other, just like she did the last time.  
  
“If you were me,” Rachel asks, her voice tinged with the barest hint of desperation, her eyes rimmed with red and pain. “If you were me, what would  _you_ do?”  
  
She breathes evenly out of the sliver of space between her bottom and top lip and slowly stands, placing her hands on Rachel’s shoulders, stopping the smaller girl in mid-pace.  
  
“I would win. I would go out there, and I would win.”  
  
Maybe Rachel doesn’t notice the way Santana’s voice cracks on the word ‘ _win_ ’.  
  
That, or she’s just polite enough to pretend it didn’t happen, and that Santana isn’t furiously blinking back the sudden moisture in her eyes.  
  
\---  
  
Rachel makes her understand: she has to let go.  
  
This is  _their_  high school experience – Rachel’s and Quinn’s and Puck’s and  _Brittany’s_  high school experience that she’s tampering with, selfishly, and Rachel, desperate the balm the searing pain of her broken heart has finally showed what she’s doing.  
  
She’s taking something away from, something they’re working so hard for; something they want so much.  
  
She’s taking it away because she’s selfish, because she thinks she needs more time here, as a Lima Loser; as a teenager; as a high schooler. She’s taking it away because she’s being selfish and greedy when she’s already done all of this before – the heartbreak and the happiness and the losing and the winning and the succeeding and the failing and the feeling – and it’s their chance she’s taking away now.  
  
This is their one chance to live out their high school experience and Santana has already done it four times now.  
 _  
A fifth time can’t hurt_ , she thinks.  _A fifth time can’t hurt anyone but me._  
  
\---  
  
Brittany curls further into her, pressing the entire length of her body against Santana’s, murmuring against Santana’s collarbone. The brunette lays still, staring up at the ceiling, watching the headlights of the passing cars dance inside the room.  
  
“You’re thinking.”  
  
Santana grins and turns a little, pressing a kiss to the crown of Brittany’s head. “And you’re supposed to be sleeping.”  
  
Brittany groans and shifts, sliding her hand across Santana’s ribcage. “So are you. What’re you thinking about?”  
  
“You,” Santana answers honestly. “Glee.”  
  
“I like that you like Glee,” Brittany says quietly. “And that everyone knows now.”  
  
“I’ve always liked Glee,” she says, knowing Brittany thinks she means since she joined this year. “I always liked singing.”  
  
Brittany nods, her head bumping against Santana’s shoulder. “You’re pretty when you sing. It’s like you’re not really you. You’re someone else. And you look so pretty.”  
  
Santana turns onto her side, wrapping both her arms around Brittany’s waist, her mouth hovering about Brittany’s forehead. “I’m not who you think I am.”  
  
She can feel Brittany smile. “No. You’re better.”  
  
“Brittany,” Santana whispers, her voice suddenly hoarse and her eyes burning. “You’ll stay in Glee, even if I don’t, right?”  
  
She’s suddenly desperate to know that Brittany won’t ever give up Glee.  
  
The blonde sits up, elbows pushed into the pillow under their heads, frowning down at Santana. “Why aren’t you staying in Glee?”  
  
Santana sits up too, her hands splayed across Brittany’s face, holding her in place. “You’ll stay, right?”  
  
  
Brittany shakes her head. “No. Not without you.”  
  
“Brittany,” she says, aware she’s pleading now, moving closer to Brittany until there’s no space between them. “Promise me you’ll still stay in Glee. Promise me you’ll keep loving it. Promise me you’ll never forget that I loved it too.”  
  
She’s suddenly desperate to know that Brittany won’t ever give up on her.  
  
“Not without you,” Brittany says again. “Why won’t you be there?”  
  
Santana smiles briefly. “It doesn’t matter. Just, in case it happens.”  
  
“S-”  
  
Santana tilts her head up, catching Brittany’s bottom lip, and kisses her, sliding against her until they’re lying back down again. She lifts up, hair falling down around their faces like a curtain no one can penetrate, and smiles sadly, leaning in until the darkness stops her from seeing Brittany’s eyes and kisses her, hands trailing against pale skin, tugging gently at Brittany’s shorts, fingers slipping under the waist band, dipping down as Brittany arches into up into her.  
  
“Promise me,” she whispers urgently as Brittany bucks her hips.  
  
  
“S,” the blonde whines. “Please.”  
  
“Promise,” Santana commands quietly. “Promise me.”  
  
Brittany lets out a keening wail and grabs Santana’s wrist, pushing it down more purposely. “I promise,” she groans. “Promise.”  
  
For the rest of the night, her heart beats to that word.  
 _  
Prom-ise, prom-ise, prom-ise._  
  
\---  
  
“Beyonce,” she hollers down the hall, picking up her pace for the last few steps it takes to get to Mercedes who is glaring at her, feigning indifference. Santana sneers at Karofsky – not because it’s expected of her, but because she really doesn’t like him; he’s the replica of his older brother Dan, a pig in his own right.  
  
Karofsky glares at her, but leaves his locker, slamming it shut.  
  
“What do you want, Skinny?”  
  
Santana rolls her eyes and leans up against the lockers. “We lost our spark.”  
  
Mercedes blinks a few times before frowning. “Excuse me?”  
  
“Glee,” Santana elaborates. “We lost our spark in Glee. With Manhands crying every other second over that mop-on-a-body, and Mr. Schue depressed about the fact that he can’t get a girl to stick around, we lost our spark.”  
  
“I don’t see how-”  
  
“We had some of it during our little playful shoving match, but it fizzled out because everyone is drama, drama, drama.”  
  
“Aren’t you the one starting most the drama?” Mercedes interrupts quickly, her eyes widening immediately before she decides to pretend like she meant to say that in the first place.  
  
Santana waves her hand dismissively. “Like that’s important. What matters is that we won’t win Regionals if we go on stage looking like someone kicked our puppy’s. Vocal Adrenaline will wipe the floor with us and then Glee will be cancelled.”  
  
“How do you know that?”  
  
She swallows heavily – Sue told her about the stupid Glee-better-win-or-it’s-terminated arrangement under penalty of death, which she instituted as some weird Sue-type of motivation – and shrugs. “I hear things. That’s not the point.”  
  
Mercedes cants one hip out and frowns, looking Santana up and down. “What  _is_  your point?”  
  
“My  _point_ ,” Santana growls, “is that we need a confidence booster. You helped lift half of the school off their asses a couple of weeks ago, so I came over here to bounce ideas off of you.”  
  
Mercedes seems to really think about it for a moment. “Our problem is that we think Vocal Adrenaline is going to beat us. They’re better at everything.”  
  
Santana shakes her head. “No, they’re soulless automatons. We  _have_  to be better at something.”  
  
“Why do you care so much?”  
  
Santana glances up from studying the ground, trying to figure out a plan and quirks one eyebrow. “Didn’t you hear my speech at Sectionals?”  
  
“Please,” Mercedes snorts. “That was all for show, just to take attention away from the fact that your girl basically gave the other teams our set list.”  
  
Santana takes a threatening step forward. “Watch it, Jennifer Hudson. You’re treading thin ice.”  
  
Mercedes put her hands up defensively and takes a step back. “Fine. Why do you care so much?”  
  
“I’ve got my reasons.”  
  
The shorter girl waits for more, but Santana crosses her arms over her chest – an act of finality – and Mercedes huffs loudly. “Fine,” she says again. “Don’t tell me. But I swear, if this is some sort of trick-”  
  
“Mercedes,” Santana snaps.  
  
It shuts the girl up.  
  
“Listen to me. I’m not talking for my health, okay? Rhetorical question,” she says quickly, heeding off Mercedes interruption. “So take that tacky, funky headband of yours and shove it in your mouth while I’m…”  
  
It occurs to both of them at the same time and Santana barely catches the grin that wants to slide across her face before she decides  _screw it, I’m allowed to be happy I’m brilliant_  and then they’re both grinning so widely Santana can feel her face stretching uncomfortably.  
  
“Funk,” Mercedes says slowly.  
  
“It’s perfect. They’ve never done a funk number. Ever.”  
  
“How do you know that?”  
  
Somehow, Santana isn’t sure Mercedes isn’t going to believe her. “I’ve got my sources,” she says.  
  
Mercedes shrugs it off, still smiling. “I’ll get Mr. Schue into it, you make sure that everyone isn’t going to freak out when he suggests it. By everyone, I mean Rachel.”  
  
“I figured,” Santana says, rolling her eyes.  
  
There’s a moment when they stare at each other before Mercedes clears her throat and Santana looks away before putting back on her usual sneer, nodding stiffly.  
  
“Good. I’ll see you in Glee,” she says as she turns back around, moving down the hallway.  
  
For both of their sakes – more hers, obviously, than Mercedes – she ignores it when the other girl yells “ _thank you_ ” at her retreating back.  
  
Too many feelings are going to make things even more complicated than they already are.  
  
\---  
  
It works.  
 _  
Of course it does_ , she instantly tells herself.  _It’s **my**  idea_.  
  
New Directions takes the stage, their fire and passion and talent pushing Vocal Adrenaline so far into their seats it’s going to take them some time before they can stand up again.  
  
Brittany claps excitedly, jumping up and down around her room while she drags her hair until into a messy ponytail, washed and free of the curls Santana worked on meticulously for hours until it was perfect. Santana grins from the computer chair, spinning in circles until Brittany is a blur of plaid pajama pants and honey-colored strings of light around her hair.  
  
“We did it, we did it,” she says, over and over, finally reaching out and catching Santana by the shoulders, pulling until they’re both lying on the bed, heads squished onto one pillow.  
  
“Thank you,” Brittany hums.  
  
Santana turns her head, unnerved at Brittany being so close. “For what?”  
  
“For saving Glee.”  
  
She pulls back and frowns, but Brittany moves closer, eliminating the space Santana tries to create. “I didn’t save Glee.”  
  
Brittany shakes her head though. “You kind of did. Everyone was sad, but you made it better.”  
  
“Mr. Schuester did that,” Santana tries to protest.  
  
“No he didn’t,” Brittany insists. “I saw you and Mercedes, in the hallway. You said you were going to get my jacket for me, and when you didn’t come back, I went to get it myself.” The blonde moves closer, pillowing her head on Santana’s shoulder, slinging her arm around Santana’s waist. “I heard what you said to her. You saved Glee.”  
 _  
Not yet_ , she thinks, as Brittany kisses her on the neck and her breathing evens out. _I haven’t saved it yet_.  
  
\---  
  
“I know what you’re trying to do, Santana Lopez.”  
  
She shouldn’t be surprised when Rachel ambushes her, but she still jumps a little when a sharp voice behind her says her full name. She waits until she begins to frown again before she turns around, arms crossed over her chest.  
  
“What do you want?”  
  
“I know what you’re doing,” Rachel repeats. “I’ve been observing you. For someone who prides themselves on being inconspicuous, you certainly fail to hide your emotions sufficiently.”  
  
“The point, Berry.”  
  
“You know, when I said that I believed you, I did not say that lightly. You’re type of personality plots and schemes and finds ways to weasel into situations, tampering them until they end up in your favor. When I told you I believed in you, it was because I could see something in your eyes, Santana. Something I would sometimes see when I looked in the mirror, in my own eyes.”  
  
Santana is quickly losing her patience, and she’s about to slam her foot down onto Rachel’s hobbit feet and call it a day but the smaller brunette takes a deep breath and continues.  
  
“You love Glee. You love singing and you love dancing.” Rachel steps forward, her hand hovering over Santana’s arm, but not touching down. “I know what you’re doing,” she repeats. “You’re trying to help us succeed. And you don’t have to hide it, Santana.”  
  
“Rachel.”  
  
The girl in question pauses, clearly shocked at the sound of her name coming from Santana. “Yes?”  
  
“You’re right.”  
  
“I’m what?”  
  
Santana stands her ground, meeting Rachel’s eyes. “You’re right. I like Glee. Everything you said is right.”  
  
Rachel opens her mouth, but hesitates before she actually speaks. “But,” she prompts.  
  
“But nothing. You were right.”  
  
\---  
  
She’s got everything under control. For the first time in thirty four years, she has everything in her life firmly under control. She has Sue and Mercedes and Rachel in her corner, which is more than she ever expected, and this whole  _thing_  is coming together so nicely, she dreams about little pink bows tying themselves around perfectly square boxes.  
  
Oversight is her biggest flaw. She’s a big picture kind of girl, and that’s why she’s a follower; she doesn’t pay attention to the smaller details, the minute features, the little things.  
  
She has everything under control, and then Brittany happens.


	3. Part 3

It’s strange that Brittany is at Sue’s. She knows where Santana lives at this point in their relationship, but Sue has always been adamant: No visitors, ever.  
  
And yet, here’s Brittany when Santana comes through the door after her Saturday morning jog, sitting on the edge of the couch in the living room with her hands clasped together on her knees, staring straight ahead. The blonde looks up when Santana stumbles into the room, hopping on one foot while she tries to pull a sneaker off, and the it shocks Santana so much her socked foot hits a part of the polished hardwood floor and she slips, crashing to the ground heavily.  
  
“Hi,” she says lamely, arching her neck back to look at Brittany upside down.  
  
Brittany gives a small wave, but doesn’t really smile back and it’s enough to send Santana rolling onto her stomach and pushing up off the floor.  
  
With Brittany in her Cheerios shorts and long-sleeved tee, and Santana in her sports bra and running shorts and one sneaker, she feels out of place in the house she’s called home for the last eighteen years, suddenly nervous. Brittany has never not smiled at her, or touched in her in some way, but the blonde doesn’t make a motion towards her.  
  
“What are you doing here?”  
  
It’s not until she sits down in the chair across from the couch – she’d moved towards the couch, but something about the way Brittany stared at her when she tried told her not to – that she sees the stack of yearbooks partially hidden behind Brittany.  
  
Yearbooks.   
  
Eighteen of them, when she counts.  
 _  
Thunderclaps_  from ’92 until this school year, stacked neatly and out of order.  
  
“Brittany…”  
  
The blonde pulls one off the top, ’93 if Santana reads it correctly sideways, and opens to a page that has a tiny slip of yellow paper attached to it. Even from across the room, she can see the glossy photo of the Cheerios smiling back at her and her heart leaps up into her throat before it sinks down into her stomach, twisting her insides into knots.  
  
“What’re you-”  
  
“Don’t.”  
  
Santana’s mouth shuts with a clack. It’s more the shock of Brittany cutting her off that leaves her speechless than anything, because in the time she’s known Brittany, the blonde has never had the courage –  _or the audacity_ , Santana thinks – to cut her off while she’s talking. Santana has always been the mouth in the relationship, and Brittany has never questioned it before.  
  
Apparently, Brittany is questioning it now.  
  
“I was in the library,” Brittany says slowly, “and I saw Dave Karofsky scribbling in the yearbook with us in it, the one with the Glee club photo. I took it away from him and I wanted to make sure that he didn’t do it in any of the other ones, so I started looking through them.”  
  
Santana watches as Brittany picks another one up – ’04 this time – and opens it to the Cheerios first (of many) pages. She opens more of them – 1997, ’00, ’07, ’96 – until all eighteen are spread out on the coffee table, covering every inch of the surface.  
  
“Then I just wanted to see what the Cheerios and Glee club used to look like before us, and I was confused, because you were in the yearbooks you weren’t supposed to be in. So I kept looking, and you never took a picture, but you’re in the background of all the Cheerio photos. I know it’s you, so don’t tell me it’s not.”  
  
In all honesty, Santana wasn’t going to say anything.  
  
“The only one where there’s a real picture of you is in this one,” she said, tapping the open 1992 yearbook. “You were a freshman, it says. And that doesn’t make sense. So I asked Coach.”  
  
Santana picks up a yearbook, staring at herself in the very corner of one picture, almost impossible to see. It’s odd that Brittany would be able to pick her out of the black and white scene behind the smiling face of Jenny Fabray. It’s a grainy photo – taken before Sue bullied herself a new budget – and even the foreground is hard to distinguish, let alone the numerous cheerleaders in the background. She wants to ask Brittany how she picked Santana out of all the other girls, but Brittany is opening her mouth again and Santana is putting the book down, almost as if she’d been scolded for picking it up in the first place.  
  
“She didn’t tell me what I wanted to know, but she said to use the library and I saw you there.” Brittany tilts her head to the side, amusement and confusion in her eyes. “Is that where you go when you tell me you have to ‘do things’?”  
  
  
Santana nods, letting her finger run across the pages of the closest book.  
  
“Well, I waited until you left and I took that really heavy book off the shelf, the one you were looking at. And it took me a little while, because it’s really big and old, but I found it, towards the back.”  
  
She’s not aware that Brittany even moves until pale fingers are gripping her kneecaps, pulling for her attention.  
  
“You died.”  
  
The thing about Brittany is that she says things Santana never expects her to. Santana expects her to freak out, to shout and scream about the girl in the picture looking exactly like her, having her name. Santana doesn’t expect Brittany to be staring up at her, wide eyes glassy with concern.  
  
“Santana, you died.”  
  
“I know that,” she says, voice hoarse.  
  
She wants to ask a million questions: how did Brittany pick her out a crowd? How did Brittany recognize her face in the first place? How come, out of everyone, Brittany is the one who figured out her secret?  
  
But Brittany is sliding closer on her knees, her fingers slipping to the top of Santana’s thighs. “You’re dead.”  
  
Santana blinks, biting her lip. “I don’t know,” she admits, because she died, but she’s still here and she might not know what it means, but she knows it means  _something_. “I don’t know.”  
  
\---  
  
They lay in Santana’s bed for hours, yearbooks scattered on the bed around, the sharp corner of the 1999  _Thunderclap_  digging into Santana’s side. Brittany is propped against her side, her blonde hair spilling across Santana’s shoulder, tracing shapes and letters on Santana’s hipbone.   
  
She tells Brittany everything she knows: the night she died, waking back up, Sue taking her in, the years and the countless Glee clubs and Cheerio squads. She tells Brittany about her parents and all the people she’s watched leave her behind.  
  
“How come I can touch you?”  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
“How come I can see you?”  
  
“I don’t know.”  
  
“ _I don’t know_ ” is the answer to every question Brittany asks, but blonde doesn’t get angry or frustrated; just keeps asking questions Santana can’t answer.  
  
She tells Brittany about the tugging feeling inside of her chest, when she’s on stage, singing, and how she stopped that one time, because she felt like she was slipping.  
  
As her breathing evens out, she thinks she hears Brittany say “ _I’m glad you stopped singing_ ” but she’s asleep before she can make sure.  
  
\---  
  
It’s as if Brittany thinks she’s going to disappear. Every time she turns around, there the blonde is, smiling or reaching out for her, catching her pinkie and holding on.  
  
Santana doesn’t mind. Brittany makes her feel like she’s tied down, like she’s something tangible.  
  
\---  
  
“I’m a judge at Regionals,” Sue says over dinner.  
  
Santana and Brittany both look up, forks halfway from their mouths. Santana recovers first and puts her fork down, swallowing her half-chewed chicken. “You’re a judge.”  
  
“I didn’t tell you so you could repeat it back to me, Lopez. I’m a judge at Regionals.”  
  
“I don’t understand what that means,” Brittany says, her hand finding Santana’s under the table.  
  
“It means,” Sue says, staring at both of them across the table, “that I hold one third of the power in that judging room. More than one third if I use my natural talent of persuasion.”  
  
Santana glances over at Brittany, but the blonde is as clueless as she is. “So that means…”  
  
“It means,” Sue repeats, “that you need to make a decision if you want to stay or go.”  
  
She thinks Sue is telling her she has a choice to decide what she does with the rest of her life, but she can’t be sure.  
  
Sue sighs heavily and rolls her eyes at them. “Listen. I know you see those flashy white lights while you’re singing, but  _winning_  is what’ll really do the trick. So, you need to make a decision,” she repeats, “whether or not you want to stay or go.”  
  
Brittany’s grip tightens.   
  
Santana swallows back a gasp. “I get to choose?”  
  
“Who do you think I am? Schuester? I hold power, Lopez. I could persuade the Pope to sleep with me, if I wasn’t disgusted by the very idea of it.” Sue snorts. “You say the word, and I can make sure you take Regionals with your eyes closed and your vocal cords removed.”  
  
She thinks Sue is expecting an answer, but she can’t be sure, so she squeezes Brittany’s hand back and says “I don’t know” under her breath.  
  
“ _I don’t know_ ” is the only thing she knows how to say lately.  
  
\---  
  
“Did you decide what you want to do yet?” It’s not the first time Brittany has asked.  
  
“I don’t know.” It’s not the first time she’s given that answer, either.  
  
“But San-”  
  
Santana bats away Brittany’s hand running through her hair, pushing off the bed. “Stop it, Brittany.”  
  
Brittany frowns. “Playing with your hair?”  
  
“No,” she hisses. “Stop asking me what I’m going to do. I don’t know, okay? I’ve waited I’ve waited years for this to happen and now, now…”  
  
Brittany follows her across the room, wrapping her long pale arms around Santana’s waist, pressing her face against the back of Santana’s neck. “It’s okay. It’s okay if you want to go,” she says.  
  
She thinks that Brittany is giving her permission to move on.  
  
“I don’t know,” she whispers again, defeated.  
  
There’s so much here to hold on for – Brittany and Glee and Quinn’s baby is going to be born soon – but she’s only ever thought about letting go before this.  
  
Moving on has always been the point of redoing high school, over and over and over again.  
  
Moving on has always been the plan.  
  
Now, instead of lying awake at night, scheming how to get to the top and move on past this life, she lies awake with Brittany wrapped around her, wondering how she’s going to stay behind.  
  
Santana feels sick to her stomach when Brittany repeats herself: “ _It’s okay if you want to go_.”  
  
\---  
  
Slowly, in her own way, Santana is saying goodbye to everyone, as if she’s already made up her mind.  
  
She hasn’t – not consciously, at least – but her actions say otherwise and she makes her way through Glee club – the Cheerios, besides Brittany, aren’t really worth her time – saying the things she never wanted to say to them.  
  
She isn’t aware she’s started doing it until Quinn looks at her like she grew three heads overnight.  
  
“Did you just say  _thank you_  to me?”  
  
Santana stares down at Quinn’s hands, which always seemed to be wrapped around her stomach, as if she’s protecting the person growing inside of her from the world. Santana wants to tell her she’s doing a good job, that she’ll need to protect that little girl from all the bad things in life – and she’s seen most of them herself, so she knows what she’s talking about – but all that comes out is a thank you when Quinn kicks the open the door for her.  
  
“So?” she says lamely, crossing her arms over her chest a second too late to be smooth.  
  
Quinn frowns. “You don’t say thank you.”  
  
“I’m turning over a new leaf.”  
  
Quinn snorts and then laughs a little. “Please. Santana Lopez, turning over a new leaf? That’s like Sue Sylvester having a heart. It’s not possible.”  
  
She’s slightly offended that Quinn really thinks this little of her, but she gives the blonde a small smile, reaching out with one hand until it hovers over Quinn’s hand on her stomach, but she pulls it back and moves to take a step into the Glee room. “Just say ‘you’re welcome’ and move out of my way.”  
  
“That’s better,” Quinn says, still staring at Santana funny, but moving to let her pass. “I don’t know what’s gotten into her,” she murmurs low enough that Santana almost doesn’t hear it.  
  
She does, though.  
  
And the next time Tina says  _hello_  to her, she snarls and turns the other way.  
  
\---  
  
Going  _that_  way is an accident. She’s just walking, clearing her head, but she finds her feet taking her down the streets she’s familiar with and suddenly, she’s walking the same route she took the last time she was really alive.  
 _  
“There she is. The Glee club loser.”  
  
She looks around, but she can’t see who’s talking to her, she can only hear them taunting her.  
  
“Hey, chica. I saw you, at school, staring at that Bryan Ryan freak.” Shadows come out of the space between the two houses she’s in front of.   
Three guys, all of them from her neighborhood, loom over her. Hector Rodriguez, the boy who held her hand in the last pew of the church the night her abuela died, immediately ducks his head when she stares at him and takes a step back, letting a boy she’s only ever known as Diego take the lead.  
  
“What?” Diego asks. “You too good for us? You think you have a chance with that dancing nerd?”  
  
Santana shakes her head furiously, trying to catch Hector’s eye, but he slinks further into the shadows.  
  
“Answer me,” Diego growls. “Are we nothing but dirt to you now, wanna be gringa?”  
  
She swallows the lump in her throat, feeling something settle in her stomach heavily and she shoots one desperate last look at Hector before she shakes her head again. “N-no,” she stutters.  
  
It’s the last full English word she says before Diego hits her the first time.  
  
After that, it’s just a mess of black shapes, hard fists, and Hector’s eyes, pleading with her silently._  
  
Her visions swims, tears burning her eyes and she has to sit down, collapsing on the porch of the house she’s in front of.  
  
It hadn’t been fair. She was only been doing what she loved; she only looked at Bryan Ryan that way because every time he sang, something magical happened – the same way it happened with Rachel. She had still been Santana Lopez, the fastest girl in the neighborhood, and the toughest, and Diego had taken that away from her.  
  
It hadn’t been fair.  
  
She was only sixteen.  
  
Her phone ringing pulls her out of her head and she fumbles for it in her pocket, sliding it out and staring at the number.  
 _  
Brittany calling_ , it says, as if it’s mocking her.  
  
It’s not fair.  
  
She’s only sixteen.   
  
She deserves a chance to be happy, really happy.  
  
But she can’t decide which will make her happier: finally getting out of this rut of a life, or staying.  
  
“Hey, chica,” some snaps behind her.  
  
She pushes off the steps, hands already folded apologetically in front of her, and looks up.  
  
Diego might look older now – he was twenty one to her sixteen, anyway – but he still has the same hard eyes and the same attitude in the way he stands. She drops her hands and crosses her arms over her chest, canting her hip to one side and sneering up at him.  
  
“Get off my porch,” he says gruffly, squinting at her, one hand up to block the sun from his eyes. When he does, his mouth goes slack and his knee buckles a little under him. “Who are you?”  
  
She sees it in his eyes, the same fear she saw in Sue’s eyes eighteen years ago when the cheerleading coach stumbled upon her in the hallway – the knowledge that something is wrong, that what they’re seeing isn’t,  _can’t be_ , right. He stares at her, almost as if he’s staring through her and she smirks.  
  
  
“You know who I am,” she says so quietly, she’s not sure he heard her.  
  
He did. His mouth drops even further and she smirks a little more, sauntering forward until she’s up on the first step, less than five feet from the man –  _the boy_  – who made the decision that she shouldn’t live another day.  
  
It would be really,  _really_ , juvenile to say ‘boo’, and she should say something witty, something that sounds like she’s been practicing this for a while.  
 _  
Boo_  slips out anyway and it’s worth it.  
  
He hollers and scrambles back through the door, catching his elbow on the frame and falling the rest of the way, shaking the porch.  
  
She laughs so hard, she starts crying again, and she can’t stop, because her life, her afterlife, sucked and it was finally getting good and now, now, whoever is pulling the puppet strings around here has decided to give her the thing she’s always wanted.  
  
She cries until she feels too tired to move and then she calls Brittany who doesn’t ask why Santana ignored her phone call earlier, but takes her back to Sue’s and tucks her in, molding her long body against Santana.  
  
As the clock changes from 11:59 to 12:00, Brittany whispers “Happy Sixteenth Birthday, again,” against the back of her neck.  
  
\---  
  
She blinks a few times and it’s Regionals and  _God_ , the competition is so much more serious than Santana thought it was going to be.  
  
This isn’t like Sectionals. They won’t win because they have the most heart.  
  
If anything, that’ll be the reason they lose.  
  
She lets the situation get the best of her, sitting in the waiting room.  
  
“We just need to keep our heads in the game and stay focused,” Finn insists.  
  
It'd be cute if he wasn’t so revolting, breathing down her neck the way he is.  
  
She sneers, trying to act like this means nothing to her. “Even though we know we won’t win?”  
  
“No,” Mr. Schuester says firmly, out of nowhere.  
  
Brittany glares at her across the room, tipping her head to the side, silently asking her to follow. When Brittany stands, Santana stands, patting Rachel on the shoulder discreetly as she passes, ignoring the smile Rachel gives her in return, and silently exits the room after Brittany, lacing their fingers together as soon as they cross the threshold into the lobby.  
  
No one here knows them; no one looks twice at the girls in the gold outfits, swinging their hands back and forth.  
  
She sees an exit door across the lobby, through the people and tugs Brittany in that direction, weaving through anxious mothers and bored fathers and screaming children, pushing the door open and breathing in the silence.  
  
Brittany sits down on the top step and stares up at her.  
  
“I don’t know,” Santana says desperately, anticipating Brittany’s question.  
  
The blonde smiles sadly and shakes her head and reaches forward, catching Santana’s hand and pulling her forward until her shins are pressed against Brittany’s knees.  
  
“I love you,” Brittany says quietly, the whisper echoing loudly off the metal steps around them.  
  
She wishes Brittany had said anything but that.  
  
“No,” Brittany continues, cutting in when Santana opens her mouth. “I just wanted you to know, in case…” She shakes her head. “Because I couldn’t let you go, without telling you. I would have regretted it every day for the rest of my life, if I didn’t tell you that I’m in love with you.”  
  
She wishes Brittany hadn’t said that either.  
  
\---  
  
“This is it,” she hears Mercedes whisper to herself.  
  
Before she can say the same thing to herself, Sue is standing at her side, staring straight ahead, dropping a warm hand onto Santana’s shoulder.  
  
“Santana,” she starts, closing her mouth to swallow.  
  
Santana beats Sue to speaking. “Judge us fairly. If we’re the best, then we’re the best. If we’re not…” she trails off and gives Sue a humorless smile. “High school isn’t as bad as everyone thinks it is.”  
  
“Don’t leave this to chance, Lopez,” Sue says sternly. “Make the choice you want to make. Fate’s already decided too much for you. This is your chance to play your own person.”  
  
It’s the closest she knows she’ll ever get to hearing Sue say “ _I’m going to miss you_.”  
  
“Judge us fairly,” she repeats firmly as the music cues up, Finn and Rachel starting their lines. Sue’s hand slips from her shoulder as she pulls away, fading into the wings of the stage as they move to take their positions.  
  
She wants to go back, hug Sue and tell her “ _thank you_ ” but they’re lining before she can and Brittany is smiling at her like she’s the only thing in the world.  
  
\---  
  
Santana thinks that maybe something is wrong, that maybe she missed her chance because she stopped singing at Sectionals, and all this worry and buildup has been for nothing.  
  
They’re almost halfway through “Don’t Stop Believin’” and she feels nothing, absolutely nothing.  
  
No tug, no warm feeling spreading from the inside of her chest.  
  
All she feels is Brittany’s hand brushing against hers when they pass and the way Rachel’s smile makes the hair on the back of her neck stand up.  
  
There’s not a single tug inside and she’s getting worried, even though she’s not sure which direction she would have picked. She’s starting to get nervous and she stumbles a bit in the choreography, but Artie’s wheels catches the slip and she’s upright again, moving along in a line, catching Puck’s eye.  
  
It’s when she opens her mouth, during her solo, that it erupts inside of her, raging like a wildfire so intensely that her heart clenches and her throat almost closes and her stomach rises and drops, giving her that weightless feeling.  
  
The warmth spreads from where her heart is, across her chest and down her ribs, into her legs and up through her shoulders to her arms until she feels like she’s tingling, radiating with energy and light and hope. Her smile stretches across her face, pulling at muscles she’s never used and the weightless feeling grows stronger and stronger until she feels like she’s floating above the stage, hovering with her feet barely touching the ground, skimming along the hardwood floor.  
  
  
Everyone starts to blur: the audience becomes a mass of color, with wide dark spaces where their mouths were; the judges smear against the backdrop of the audience, bleeding in; New Directions blends against the back curtain until she’s alone on stage, a faint image of Brittany lingering beside her.  
  
Her eyes slide closed and her head drops back and the tingling grows, starting in her feet and spreading up into her legs and her torso and distantly, she can hear them still signing and it’s getting louder and louder, roaring in her ears like the ocean, like when she held a seashell to the side of head and listened to it sing for her, and it should hurt, but it doesn’t.  
  
It grows and grows until she can hear it pounding inside of her head and Brittany has faded completely and there’s nothing but white, blinding through her eyelids.  
  
She opens them, but doesn’t wince and feeling her whole body expanding.  
  
There’s a clap of something like thunder, a blast of even more brilliant white light and she snaps her eyes closed when she feels everything explode around her.  
  
She sinks into the blackness, warmth seeping out through her fingers and she’s reaching for Brittany.  
  
\---  
  
Her head is pounding.  
  
That’s her first thought: her head feels like there’s a rock concert going on inside of it.  
  
It feels like a hangover, only twenty times magnified and she tries to open her eyes, but the sunlight is blinding. She rolls to her side, wincing at the way her body aches as she does. Her arms don’t hold her weight the first time she tries to push herself up, but the second time, she only wobbles a little before she’s sitting on the sidewalk, cradling her head between her hands.  
  
She groans and reaches for the lamppost beside her, using it to stand and holding onto it when the world spins as she stands upright.  
  
It’s not until she’s letting go of the lamppost that she can see where she is. Diego’s house looms behind her, cloaking her in its shadow, almost hiding the slick blood she suddenly notices on her hand. Her palms are cut across, seeping warm, red liquid down her wrists and fingertips, dripping onto the pavement under her, splashing against her shoes.  
  
Her  _sneakers_ , the ones she was wearing the day…  
  
She ignores the feeling that something is slamming against her ribs with every step she takes, and runs the six blocks to where she grew up, her body hurtling to a stop, and protesting, at the sidewalk turning down towards the front steps.  
  
She hammers on the front door, picking the heavy knocker her father painstakingly drilled into the door up and down so many time her arms hurt.  
  
Hector opens the door.   
  
He stares up at her – she was always a little taller – his eyes wide and his expression horrified and his gaze drifts down to her hand, still raised by the knocker, dripping onto the porch. He takes a few steps back into the house, not blinking and she almost moves to follow him, but she can’t seem to get her feet to listen to her head.  
  
When he turns his head and screams “ _Dad!_ ” she knows something isn’t right.  
  
She hears footsteps, thundering down the hall in time with the hammering in her head. An older man turns the corner – the one that she’d bumped into so many times when she was younger, in her haste to get out the door – and comes to a stop besides his son, staring at her.  
  
“ _Dios mio_ ,” she hears him murmur and she feels like she’s going to throw up.  
  
Hector didn’t answer the door. Hector’s  _son_  answered the door.  
  
Hector’s son.  
  
She backs off the porch slowly, unable to take her eyes away from Hector’s, remembering the way they looked at her so sadly the last time she saw them, and it’s all too much.  
  
It’s too much too fast and her palms burn and ache so she takes off again, wanting to feel the burn in her lungs instead, not sure which direction her feet will take her.  
  
She isn’t surprised when they take her back to Sue’s house, but this time, she lingers on the walk in front, staring up the Cheerio Red door and the porch swing Brittany suckered her into annoying Sue about. She climbs the stairs cautiously, listening for the creak of a treadmill or the squeak of trophy polish, but she can’t hear anything.  
  
There’s a faint ringing in her ears, as if she’d been standing next to a large set of speakers, but it’s dull enough so that when sits down on the bench, she can lay down, close her eyes, curl up and fall asleep.  
  
\---  
  
Something hard hits her in the forehead, right above where she’s pillowed her head on the top of the armrest, and it draws her out of her dream where a bear is chasing her around the football field, blowing into a bullhorn and demanding she try harder.  
  
Sue is standing over her when she snaps to attention – at least, it looks like a woman in a track suit, so it must be close enough – waving around the newspaper – that must have been the thing that hit her in the face – and Santana is sure she’s trying to be alert and wide-eyed but she can hardly ever function without a cup of coffee so she does the best she can.  
  
“Lopez, inside.”  
  
She follows dutifully, because that’s what she does, and Sue directs her to the kitchen, pulling her hands out of the pocket of the sweatshirt she slept in and thrusting them under water hot enough to scald her hands. She doesn’t really feel it, but even Sue winces a little when she takes over, scrubbing away at the dried blood on her palms.  
  
“What happened?”  
  
“What happened?”  
  
They ask the question at the same time, but Sue relents first, turning the handle until the water is a little cooler. “New Directions won.” Her tone is clipped, but her eyes are warmer than Santana has ever seen them in eighteen years. “They won and Quinn had the baby and they got to keep Glee.”  
  
Santana slumps against the counter. “How long has it been since…”  
  
“A week.” Sue takes her hands out from under the water and passes her a towel. “It’s been a week. What happened to you.”  
  
Santana shudders, feeling the sudden chill of the sidewalk under her shoulders. “I woke up this morning. I was on the ground, where I was, where I was…” Sue waves her hand, silently telling her she doesn’t have to continue the sentence. “I went to my house, but… different people live there now. So I came here.”  
  
She slides into a chair at the kitchen table and drops her head into her hands. “A week,” she murmurs. “I’ve been gone a week.” Her head snaps up. “Where did I even go?”  
  
“I’m not sure.”  
  
Then another thought occurs to her, and she launches out of her chair but Sue grabs her around the shoulder, pushing her back into the seat. She struggles against the Coach’s hold, but Sue has always been strong, and she’s tired and weak and apparently, has been asleep for the last week, so she goes slack and Sue lets go after a minute.  
  
“I need to go see Brittany,” she murmurs.  
  
Sue nods. “I know. But first, you need to shower. You look like death.”  
  
Sue is halfway out the door – Santana has slumped forward onto the table, trying to catch her breath – when she turns around. “It’s not your best look.”  
  
It’s not really a Sue-ism, but it’ll do.  
  
\---  
  
She opens her eyes again and expects to be back on the sidewalk, but she’s in her bed at Sue’s, surrounded by Cheerio Red walls, clutching her pillow to her chest desperately.  
  
Brittany shifts at the end of the bed and Santana blinks a few times, as if she’s going to disappear while Santana’s eyes are closed. But she opens them and keeps them open and Brittany is still there, staring at her and pulling at the hem of her shirt.  
  
Santana doesn’t get a chance to say anything before Brittany is sliding down next to her, wrapping her arms around Santana’s waist and burying her face in Santana’s neck.  
  
There’re hot tears against her skin and Brittany’s lips sliding from the bottom of her jaw to the top of her neck, murmuring words Santana can’t quite make out.  
  
“I missed you,” she finally understands as Brittany pulls back a little enough to let the words drift up towards her ear. “Don’t ever go away again.”  
  
She nods, because she can’t force any words out, but Brittany is already melding back into her body and it’s so warm she can’t help but close her eyes again.  
  
“I won’t,” she manages to say. “I won’t ever leave.”  
  
\---  
  
It’s her fifth graduation ceremony.  
  
She lines up according to the alphabet, adjusting the gown she bought the first time she did this, and smiling at Quinn, playing with Beth by the grass where she’s supposed to be standing in line.  
  
Sue, at the front of line, nods stiffly at her before handing her an envelope with her name on it, a San Diego University logo emblazed on the front.  
  
“Full ride,” Sue says quietly. “I would have been disappointed with anything less.”  
  
She grins. “Of course you would have been.”  
  
It’s not the first time she applied to a college – the second graduation, she thought maybe she could just go – but it’s the first time she’s accepted that she’s going somewhere. Her room at Sue’s is already packed in boxes and bags and she moves in three weeks from tomorrow, to train for the summer cheerleading session.  
  
Sue made dinner for her and Brittany, and let them eat dessert.  
  
Distantly, the graduation march begins to play so she abandons Sue, handing back her acceptance letter for safe-keeping and weaves through the group of students, all of them cheering and hollering because they’re out.  
  
The novelty has worn off, but this time, even she’s grinning, unable to contain her excitement.  
  
She’s engulfed by a sea of red polyester as Brittany drapes herself around Santana, squeezing so tight she can’t breathe.  
  
“This is so exciting!” she squeals.  
  
It is, but not for the reasons Brittany thinks it is.  
  
For the first time since 1994 – the first ceremony – when she crosses that stage and accepts her diploma, it’ll be real.  
  
She’ll be an official graduate of William McKinley High School.  
  
She wishes her parents were here to see this; to see her graduate with National cheerleading titles under belt, and three National Glee championships won. She wishes they would be on the other side of that stage, clapping for her and cheering and telling her proud they are of her.  
  
She wishes she could have told them things she never did, like how proud she was to be a Lopez, and how they taught her so much.  
  
Brittany laughs in her ear at something Mercedes said and it pulls Santana back into the present, where she’s four people where she should be.  
  
“Oh, no you don’t,” Brittany says, smirking.  
  
She stares up at Brittany – the blonde has always been a little taller – and smiles widely, the facial muscles that once would have protested easily pulling back into a familiar motion.  
  
After she woke up with Brittany after waking up after Regionals, the blonde didn’t say a word. They laid in bed all day and it wasn’t until the clock on her bedside table hit one that she said anything.  
  
Then she said everything: the feeling she got on stage, waking up alone and cold and wondering where she was, coming back, trying to find Brittany. She told her about reaching for Brittany at Regionals, trying to find her and hitting nothing but air and Brittany hadn’t said a word until Santana’s throat was hoarse from crying and talking.  
  
“You’re not going anywhere,” Brittany continues.  
  
“Except for San Diego,” Santana reminds her.  
  
Brittany grins. “Except for San Diego,  _with me_.”  
  
“Oh,” Santana says, feigning confusion. “Is that who that extra plane ticket was for? I thought Rachel might want it…”  
  
“Santana Lopez,” Brittany says sternly, eyes narrowed for a half a second before she laughs again. “I love when you smile. You have the prettiest smile.”  
  
She wants to say something smooth, but what comes out is, “It’s easy to smile when I have the prettiest girl” and the old Santana would have stuck her finger down her throat, to push back those words before they got out.  
  
This Santana, who gets to pick out college courses and spend afternoons finding places she can take Brittany to make out on campus without her roommate interrupting, rolls her eyes at the way Brittany guffaws, because she knows the blonde loves it anyway.  
  
This Santana smiles as she crosses the stage, waving, like the dorks she always made fun of, to Mr. Schuester and Sue – who actually grins back at her – and Brittany’s parents and Beth sitting on her Grandma Fabray’s lap.  
  
This Santana waits at the bottom of the steps of the stage until Brittany comes down them.  
  
This Santana stretches out her hand, waits until Brittany takes it, and then she moves on.


End file.
